Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Economy of the Church from a Pastoral Theology point of view

by
Bekari Abuladze

Translated
by Dimitris Salapatas

‘Economy’
(οικονομία) is
a Greek word which cannot be translated into other European languages; it is
merely transcribed with Latin characters and is pronounced according to each
language, for instance in English it is ‘economy’, French ‘economie’, German
‘Ökonomie’ etc. The word economy derives from two words, the noun οίκος
(i.e. house) and the verb νέμω (i.e. share, distribute, regulate
etc.).

The
literal meaning of the word ‘economy’ is a settlement, adjustment of everything
relating to the house, our things, money and our issues in general. The verb ‘economise’
indicates the arrangement of topics in accordance with our interests and
efficiency in order to run our private life and our household, or our public
life, city, state, the globalised world etc. The word ‘economy’, however, is
now commonly used exclusively in the financial and market fields, so we refer
to the political economy, ministry of finance, the science of economy,
economists etc.

The
Church uses the term ‘economy’ with a variety of concepts in two particular
cases. In the first instance, in doctrinal theology, ‘economy’ is believed to
be an expansion of theology. By referring to theology we understand the Holy
Trinity, i.e. the three persons within God’s essence, explaining thus the relationship
between God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, the term
‘economy’ refers also to the outer relationship of the Triune God, the
relationship of the Uncreated Triune God to the created, man and the world,
body and soul, matter and spirit, speaking of the divine economy which actually
means the divine providence of God for mankind and the world (the divine
economy). The Holy Trinity ontologically (theologically) is unknown to mankind,
incommunicable, ineffable and incomprehensible; on the other hand what is known
in Its relationship with man and the world is the divine providence, which is communicable,
understandable in the cataphatic theology as well as teachable (economically).

Secondly,
the term economy as opposed to accuracy is widely and most commonly used in
canon law. The sacred canons are applied by the church with the responsibility
of the bishop in two different ways. One is accuracy and the other is economy. The
accurate application of the sacred canons is the strict, literal, with no
exceptions or waivers, observance, of all which in any case the canons provide.
The application of the church’s canons in a divine economic sense results in
the elastic compliance of the rules, according to the spirit of the meaning and
not a literal one, i.e. taking the exceptional paradigm in numerous instances
for a short period of time, having as criterion the salvation of the Church’s
members.

One
example is the baptism of a Christian. Precise application is the three
immersions of the baptised preferably into flowing water, with the invocation
of the Holy Trinity, in the name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy
Spirit, by a clergyman, bishop or presbyter, never by a deacon or a member of
the lower class of the clergy (sub-deacon, reader etc.). An ‘economic baptism’
(according to the economy of the Church) is the so called ‘air baptism’,
relating to infants who are in imminent danger of death, which a clergyman or a
lay person raises three times as high in the air, invoking the Holy Trinity in
order for the dying infant to have a Christian burial and hence be remembered
within the Church. The air baptism is the economy of the Church in celebrating
the sacrament of baptism.

According
to the sacred canons the economy is realised by the Holy Spirit “by divine
grace” (LXXX Rule of the Holy Apostles). Responsible for the ecclesiastical
economy is the bishop and his agent the presbyter, according to the opinion of
the late Amilka Alivizatos, professor of Canon Law at the School of Theology of
the University of Athens, as was published in his book “The Economy according
to the Canon Law of the Orthodox Church”, Athens 1949, p. 68. According to the
professor of Canon Law from the School of Theology of the University of
Thessaloniki and then Archbishop of Athens (1967-1973), Ieronimos Kotsonis, in
his book “Problems of Church Economy”, Athens 1957, p. 134, even a lay person
can apply the ecclesiastical economy at the request or with the permission of
the local bishop.

The
implementation of the economy must be applied very carefully, in some cases of
absolute necessity, since the salvation of the member of the Church might be
endangered. As stated by Theodore Studite, the ecclesiastical economy is exercised
“κατάκαιρόνκαιλόγον”, “in time and by reason” (Epistle XXI,
PG 99, 981). It should be noted that the ecclesiastical economy is limited to
the administration, operation and order of the Church, i.e. the good standing
order instead of disorder. The economy does not extend to the doctrine of the Church
and in no circumstances does it apply to the doctrinal teaching or the texts of
doctrinal theology (terms, decisions of councils), as claimed by the professor emeritus
of Canon Law from the Faculty of Social Theology of the University of Athens,
Panayiotis Boumis, in his article “Economy” in the Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics (vol. 9, cols. 678-9).

Clearly
it is identified by all the aforementioned canon law specialists that the
economy is the freedom in Christ, which the Church keeps in order to manage the
divine grace and to resolve, settle and regulate its own affairs, i.e. whatever
interests its own household, the home of the faithful members, in order to
ensure their salvation and guarantee the unity of the Church. This is exactly
how canon law and pastoral theology perceive economy. Pastoral theology economises,
i.e. handles, manages, regulates, arranges and ensures the salvation of the members
of the Church. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the issue of ‘economy’ was
addressed in especially valuable treatises by the two leading academics of the
then chairs, under the name the Chair of Canon Law and Pastoral Theology in the
two Schools of Theology of Greece, Amilkas Alivizatos in Athens (1949) and Ieronimos
Kotsonis in Thessaloniki (1957).

Economy
is a fundamental concept of pastoral theology, which deals with the theological
foundation of the pastoral ministry of our Church, based on the Bible and the
Church Fathers. The ecclesiastical economy is an application and extension of
the divine economy in which Christ “became man, in order for us to reach
theosis” (Athanasius the Great) “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
(John 1, 14). The ecclesiastical economy operates in the most decisive way
within the daily pastoral ministry of the Church, by applying the Incarnation
of the Son of God and the Manifestation of the Word for the salvation of man.
The criterion of pastoral theology in the Orthodox Church is the economy that we
find in the tradition of our Church from the Bible and the Church Fathers up to
the Holy Canons; the Orthodox ecclesiastical life is incomprehensible and
impossible without the economy. Besides, the salvation of man is economised by
the unique event of the Incarnation of the Word of God and is realised by the
Body of Christ, i.e. the Church, on a daily basis through the centuries until
the end of this world, on a global level.

When
we describe the Church as “a novel eschatological body”that enters the world, growing and fulfilling spiritually by the
sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, we summarise the whole of her (the Church’s)
Economy in a pastoral eschatological way of life and existence. With the
Incarnation and Pentecost, the Church is revealed as a new creation which
brings a new way of being and life, a new message of a sacred and spiritual
concurrence of man and God.

The
Economy of God is realised in practice within the spiritual and pastoral
context of the Church. This Church is the incorruptible life of man, more real
and more esoteric than the man himself. The man becomes alive be his integration
and abidance within her mystical body. The Church is the ontological infinite
possibility and grace, which was given once with Christ and is continually offered
to us with the Holy Spirit, in order for us to undertake the return path to
God, to return to the loving communion and union with Him; to achieve our
transformation and theosis. However, this is a tedious task that is expressed
and in our concurrent procession towards mankind, in discovering the love for
man and everything human, in our responsibility for the salvation and
deification of the whole world. This is truly the meaning of life and its
ultimate purpose, as embodied within the Church.

The
late Fr. Michael Kardamakis notes, “The Church’s destination, which has room
for everything but does not fit anywhere, is to recruit and recap everything,
to unite all with God, to make everything share in the Trinitarian life and
glory. The Church, which perfects the destination and aim of creation, is the
dynamic place and method where both man and the world are deified; it is
mankind and the cosmos on the way to the transformation and deification in
Christ with the breadth of the Holy Spirit”.[1]

The
Economy of God in other words, as expressed through loving and in a sanctifying
manner within the Church “through the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Spirit”[2] is the Economy of the
Church, having as the ultimate recipient the entire creation and the world. It
is the openness of grace and of illumination towards the people of Christ; it
is the fulfilment of every intimate desire “in Christ and through Christ”; it
is the conclusive expression of the loving offering and sacrifice of the
God-man to the world.

Pastoral
Theology has as its ultimate objective to transform, in a sanctifying manner,
the human being as a communicant towards the catholic truth, the fullness of
being and of life, the universality of the Divine-human reality, in its
vertical and horizontal dimensions. Because in it exists the grace, the
transformative power, the dynamic divine presence that makes everything
possible to man, that opens the door, through ascesis, for the catholic vision
of man, of life and the world. Inside the charismatic wealth of the Church,
i.e. within the light of Economy, man reverses the effects of the fall and communicates
the mystery of the universality of salvation, meaning that he tastes the fruits
of the spirituality of the Church, because spirituality is the fruit of
salvation.

“Man
outside of the communion of the Church, still remains captured, alone, weak and
desperate in the human or demonic will, within the autonomy or heteronomy. He
is namely uninvolved in the Spirit’s gifts, which activate the gift of
salvation, being outside the life of transfiguration and theosis, the life of
theonomy, which is a life of communion and of free love of God in Christ”[3].

The unutterable
love of Christ is expressed through the Economy of the Church as a sanctifying present,
as a possibility of communion and relationship and concurrence of Heaven and
Earth, God and man.

His
Eminence Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Ierotheos Vlahos writes: “Actually by living
within the Church, It is possible to experience heaven within our hearts and
then the space of the heart will become a ‘heaven of heart’, for which so much
has been written and particularly experienced by the Holy Fathers. We need to
understand that this spiritual ascension “πάθος εστί του αναλαμβανομένου,
ενέργεια δε του αναλαμβάνοντος” according to St. Maximus. Mankind does not carry
out theosis and ascension, but he undergoes it, meaning that it is realised by
the energy of God. And actually this ascension of man to the heavens, as St.
Maximus says, it is ‘η εν τω Θεώ γενομένη αυτώ μετά ταύτα μονή τε και ίδρυσις’”[4].

Man
cannot understand that he is a sinner, before starting to believe in God.
Without God, each new error that he commits doesn’t inevitably result in the
breaking of the already cracked mirror of God in him? Where will he see his
reflection? Each and every new error creates to the person an intolerable sense
of final expulsion from Paradise, a final conviction that man assigns to
himself. It is only the recognition and the acceptance of his sinfulness that leads
‘the prodigal son’ in the bosom of the Father, who tirelessly and patiently
waits for him for years or even for a whole lifetime to return as a repented
man. However, repentance must precede the experience. So this experience is
brought today by the Economy of the Church. An experience of the resurrection
and redemption, an experience of joy and sanctification, life ‘in freedom and
love’, an experience that makes anew and recreates spiritually, i.e. transforms
and makes man to testify as right praxis the Pauline view: “Therefore I take
pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in
distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong”[5].

The
Economy of the Church is expressed pastorally in the unconditional acceptance
of our fellow man. The other, the different, the alien, gradually is familiarised
and it becomes known personally and substantially as far as the faithful is in
communion with the body of the Church and participates in her life-giving sacraments.

Professor
Marios Begzos writes: “The other is the criterion of my-self to the extent that
it provokes my ego in order to be liberated from my-self, to become the ‘other’
him, i.e. to be ‘changed’ in order to not be alienated. Our own self becomes “αλλοίος”, another, a different kind, it
undergoes a ‘good alteration’, it is altered and it changes, meaning that it is
improved, upgraded. Thus, this prevents our alienation, our fall to the “αλλότριο”, to the strange, to the opposite to
us, to the state of nothingness. The antidote against the alienation is the
alteration, the precedence of the whole and the other against our ego with the
subsequent finding of our own self”[6].

The
Church of Christ is following on a pastoral course the way of the Cross and the
Resurrection of our Lord. As a mystery of mysteries, as an ontological and
divine-human mystery it emphasises her eschatological dimension and perspective
and transforms mankind in a spiritual and sacred way, because her Economy is
the expression of the Incarnation of our Lord and even more of the embodied
love. That is why the Economy of the Church includes the universality and the
tomorrow in the daily experience and life of the selfless and Christian love,
which is accomplished mysteriously and charismatically through the liturgical
and devotional ecumenicity and grace.

“The
Church is God’s work on earth; it is the image of His sacred presence, His indwelling
in the world”[7].
It is this image, as the provision and gift of God, which brings and ministers,
in a sacrificial manner, the Pastoral Theology; an icon which ministers and
will minister mankind in a loving way, as divine Economy from now and unto the
ages of ages. Amen!

Bekari Abuladze is
a Bachelor of Theology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
School of Theology. He completed his first degree in 2010 and then started his
Postgraduate studies in the Department of Systematic Theology of Pastoral
Psychology. He is the first student from Georgia who was
appointed as President of the Faculty’s Student Union. He is currently studying
under the supervision of the Head of the Department, Prof. Marios Begzos. He is
also a representative of the Patriarchate of Georgia to Greece.

Dimitris Salapatas has
studied Theology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School
of Theology, as well as Byzantine Music at the National College of Music in
Athens. He then studied International Relations on a Postgraduate level at the
University of London. He is currently undertaking a research on the “Fellowship
of St. Alban and St. Sergius and its contribution towards Anglican - Orthodox
Relations”, at the University of Winchester.

About Me

I have studied Theology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Theology, International Relations at the University of London (Queen Mary). My Master's Thesis was published as a book: 'The Aegean Sea Dispute Between Greece and Turkey - The Consequences for NATO and the EU'. For more information see: http://www.akakia.net/el/the-aegean-sea-dispute-between-greece-and-turkey
I have also studied Byzantine Music in Athens and I am currently undertaking a research on the “Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius and its contribution towards Anglican – Orthodox Relations”, at the University of Winchester.
I also represent the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain at the A.E.C.A. If you wish to contact me you can email me: demetrifs1@yahoo.com